Neglected and Humiliated on TV by My Billionaire Husband (Billionaire Marriage in Crisis #14)

Prologue

Hannah

I’m standing in our kitchen in a dress that cost more than my first car, barefoot because heels hurt and Cameron’s not here to impress anyway, scrolling through my phone while I wait for the pasta water to boil.

Cameron is at his father’s investor dinner right now. The big one, six months on the calendar and four reminder calls from Prentiss this week to make sure he charms the overseas delegation. I told him to go. I told him we could celebrate this weekend instead, that it was fine, that I understood.

I meant it, mostly. I understand that he has responsibilities. I understand that the company matters. I just wish, sometimes, that I mattered a little more.

On impulse, I open our text thread and type out a message: I miss you followed by a sad face emoji. Silly, childish, a text he won’t even see for hours because he’s probably in the middle of schmoozing some executive right now.

I hit send anyway and set the phone down to check on the sauce.

Ten minutes later, I hear tires in the driveway, fast, too fast, like someone’s being chased or doing the chasing.

The front door slams open.

Cameron bursts through already loosening his tie with one hand while the other fumbles with his cufflinks. His hair is wrecked and there’s a coffee stain on his sleeve and he looks like he sprinted here from somewhere far away.

“You’re home,” I say, confused and a little worried because he’s breathing hard and his eyes are wild. “Is everything okay? Did something happen at the dinner?”

“Everything’s fine, everything’s perfect.” He crosses the room in three strides and pulls me against him, burying his face in my hair. “God, I missed you too.”

“Cam, you saw me this morning. And aren’t you supposed to be at the investor thing? The one your mother won’t stop calling about?”

“I left.”

I pull back to look at his face. “You left? What do you mean you left?”

“I mean I stood up in the middle of the appetizer course, told my father I had somewhere more important to be, and walked out.” He’s grinning now, that slightly unhinged grin he gets when he’s done something reckless.

“One of the board members was three graphs into his quarterly projections when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked down and saw your text, the sad face, and I just thought… what the fuck am I doing here? It’s my anniversary.

My wife misses me. Why am I listening to this? ”

“Cameron, you left an investor dinner because I sent you an emoji?”

“I left an investor dinner because my wife missed me.” He cups my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. “I have twelve board members and one wife. Guess which one matters more?”

My eyes are stinging. I blink hard, refusing to let the tears fall, because if I start crying now I won’t stop and I spent forty-five minutes on this face.

“Your father is going to kill you,” I manage. “Your mother is going to help him hide the body and then dance on your grave.”

“Probably.” He doesn’t seem even slightly concerned about this. His hands are on my waist now, pulling me closer, and his eyes are bright with undisguised joy. “I don’t care. I’d rather be here with you eating burned pasta than there listening to another slideshow.”

“The pasta isn’t burned, I’ll have you know. I’m a very competent cook.”

“The sauce is smoking.”

“What?” I whirl around to find that the arrabbiata has indeed achieved a concerning consistency, smoke curling up from the edges of the pot. “Shit, shit, shit-”

Cameron laughs and nudges me aside, grabbing the pot off the burner. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it. Move over, let me salvage this.”

“You can cook?”

“I can absolutely cook. I make excellent eggs.”

“Eggs are not pasta, Cameron.”

“Pasta is just… wet eggs. Flour eggs. I can figure this out.” He’s already rummaging through the fridge, pulling out ingredients with more confidence than skill. “I’m going to make you the best anniversary dinner you’ve ever had.”

“It’s our first anniversary. It’s the only anniversary dinner I’ve ever had.”

“Then I’m definitely going to make it the best. Low bar. I’ve got this.”

He does not, in fact, have this.

Twenty minutes later, the smoke alarm is shrieking, Cameron is flapping a dish towel at it while swearing creatively in at least three languages, and the pasta he attempted has achieved sentience and appears hostile to human life.

“It’s fine,” he yells over the alarm, “this is fine, I can salvage this-”

“Cameron, the pasta is literally on fire.”

“It’s not on fire, it’s just aggressively toasted.” He yanks the pot off the burner and dumps it in the sink, where it hisses like an angry cat. “Okay, minor setback. I can still fix this.”

“You cannot fix carbonized pasta. That’s not how cooking works.”

“Watch me.”

He cannot fix it. The pasta is a lost cause, a blackened mass of what was once penne. Between my overcooked sauce and his cremated noodles, we’ve managed to destroy dinner from both ends simultaneously. Cameron stands over the ruins of our combined culinary efforts looking genuinely devastated.

“I wanted to make you dinner,” he says, his voice so dejected I almost feel bad for laughing. Almost. “I walked out of a board dinner to come cook for you and instead I’ve committed crimes against Italian cuisine.”

I open the cabinet, pull out two bowls and a box of Cheerios.

“What are you doing?”

“Adapting.” I pour cereal into both bowls, add milk, and hand him one. Then I sink down to the kitchen floor, my expensive dress pooling around me, and pat the tile beside me. “Sit.”

He stares at me for a second, holding his bowl of Cheerios in his thousand-dollar suit with smoke still hanging in the air around us. Then he laughs, this helpless, delighted sound that makes my heart squeeze, and slides down the cabinet to join me.

We eat cereal on the kitchen floor while the smoke alarm finally stops screaming and the windows air out the evidence of our crimes. My bare feet find his socked ones under the hem of my dress, our ankles tangling together like they do when we’re falling asleep.

“This is not how I pictured our anniversary going,” he says around a mouthful of Cheerios.

“This is perfect.”

“You’re eating children’s cereal in a Valentino dress on the floor of a kitchen that smells like a crematorium.”

“And I’ve never been happier.” I lean my head on his shoulder, and he shifts to wrap his arm around me. “You left your meeting for me. You left your father’s incredibly important investor dinner because I sent you a sad emoji.”

“I left because my wife missed me. I’d leave anything for you, Hannah. I’d leave everything.”

“Even the quarterly projections presentation?”

“Especially the quarterly projections presentation. God, especially that.” He sets his bowl aside and pulls me into his lap, cereal be damned. “Dance with me.”

“There’s no music.”

“We don’t need music. We’ve never needed music.”

He stands, pulling me up with him, and then we’re swaying in the middle of our disaster of a kitchen with nothing but the faint hum of the refrigerator and the lingering smell of burned pasta. Just his hand on the small of my back and his heartbeat under my ear.

I don’t care that there’s no music. I hope we’re eighty years old and still dancing in kitchens that smell like whatever we’ve managed to destroy together.

“I love you,” he murmurs against my hair. “I know I work too much. I know I get caught up in things that don’t matter. But you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I need you to know that you will always come first.”

“I know.”

“Nothing on this earth outranks you. Nothing ever will.”

And then he’s kissing me, soft at first, then deeper, his hands sliding from my waist to my hips. I make a sound against his mouth that’s half laugh and half want, and he takes that as the invitation it is.

He lifts me onto the kitchen counter in one smooth motion.

The marble is cold through the thin fabric of my dress and I gasp at the shock of it, but then his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, that spot behind my ear he discovered on our third date and has been exploiting mercilessly ever since.

His tongue drags slow and wet along my pulse point and I tilt my head back, letting him have all of me.

He sucks there, hard enough to leave a mark I’ll feel tomorrow, and the sting mixes with the heat building between my legs.

“We could go to the bedroom,” I manage, my voice coming out embarrassingly breathless as his teeth graze my shoulder.

“Too far.”

“It’s thirty feet away.”

“Exactly. Thirty feet too far.” His fingers find the zipper at my back and drag it down inch by inch, the sound loud in the quiet kitchen.

The dress slips off my shoulders and pools at my waist. He steps back just enough to look at me, eyes dark and hungry.

“Fuck, Hannah. No bra. You were waiting for this.”

I reach for his tie, loosening it with impatient fingers. “I’ve been thinking about you all day too. Burning the pasta was just the warm-up.”

He laughs low and filthy, shrugging out of his shirt.

It hits the floor. Then his hands are on my thighs, pushing the dress higher until it’s bunched around my hips.

He hooks his thumbs into my panties and yanks them down, tossing them somewhere behind him.

The cool air hits my bare pussy and I shiver, but he’s already dropping to his knees between my spread legs.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice rough with want. “Already wet for me. Dripping on our counter like you can’t wait for my mouth.”

He doesn’t tease. His tongue licks a long, slow stripe up my slit, and I moan, hips jerking forward.

He groans against me like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted, then seals his lips around my clit and sucks hard.

One thick finger pushes inside me, curling just right, pumping slow and deep while his tongue flicks and circles.

I grab his hair, holding him there as pleasure coils tight in my belly.

“Cam - fuck, yes, just like that,” I gasp, rolling my hips against his face.

He adds a second finger, stretching me, fucking me with them while he eats me like he’s starving.

His free hand slides up to palm my breast, thumb rubbing my nipple in tight circles until it’s tight and aching.

I come hard, thighs clamping around his head, crying out as waves crash through me.

He doesn’t stop, licking me through it, fingers still working until I’m shaking and oversensitive.

He stands up, mouth shiny with me, and kisses me deep so I taste myself on his tongue.

I reach down, unbuckling his belt, shoving his pants and boxers down.

His cock springs free, thick and hard, the head already leaking.

I wrap my hand around him and stroke, slow and firm, thumb swiping over the slit.

“My turn,” I say, but he shakes his head, grinning that wicked grin.

“Not yet. I want inside you first.” He lifts me higher on the counter, lines himself up, and pushes in with one long thrust. I gasp at the stretch, the way he fills me completely. He stays buried deep for a second, forehead against mine, breathing hard.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growls. “So perfect around my cock. I love you.”

He says it like a prayer, like a vow, like he means it more than he’s ever meant anything.

I believe him.

He starts moving, slow deep strokes that make me feel every inch.

One hand grips my hip, the other cups my breast, pinching my nipple between his fingers while he fucks me.

He leans down and sucks the other nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing, tongue swirling as he thrusts harder.

The counter rocks under us. I wrap my legs around his waist, heels digging into his ass, pulling him deeper.

“Faster,” I demand, rolling my hips to meet him. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

He curses, hips snapping forward, cock driving into me over and over. His mouth moves to my neck, biting down as his fingers work my clit again, rubbing tight circles. “Come for me again, baby. Let me feel that pussy squeeze my cock.”

I shatter a second time, clenching around him, moaning his name loud enough the open windows probably carry it outside.

He follows right after, burying himself deep, groaning as he fills me, hips jerking with every pulse.

He keeps moving through it, shallow thrusts, kissing my lips, my jaw, whispering “I love you” between each one.

After, we end up on the kitchen floor because the counter got uncomfortable and we were both too boneless to make it anywhere else. My dress is definitely ruined. I don’t care even slightly.

“Happy anniversary,” Cameron says, tracing lazy patterns on my bare shoulder.

“Happy anniversary.” I turn to kiss his jaw. “Best one yet.”

“The bar is extremely low. We’ve only had one.”

“And you’ve already set an impossible standard. Burned pasta and floor sex and you walking out of an investor dinner because of an emoji. How are you going to top this next year?”

“I’ll think of something.” He pulls me closer, tucks my head under his chin. “I always do.”

I close my eyes and let myself drift, warm and safe and loved beyond reason. This is what marriage is supposed to feel like. This is what we are.

This is what I thought we’d always be.

***

The tablet on the counter lights up.

I blink, disoriented. The kitchen is dark now. I’m alone, eating cereal at midnight, and his side of the bed has been empty more nights than I can count this month.

The notification glows against the darkness: the recurring reminder he set for me ages ago. WORKING LATE.

I stare at it until the screen goes dark.